Building Houses Out of Straw

Did you know that safe and warm houses can be built out of straw? As the weather gets colder, many families on Indian reservations across America struggle to keep themselves warm. That’s why Red Feather Development Group is working to provide straw bale housing for some of the poorest citizens in our country.

From their website:

Why Straw Bale Construction?
At the foundation of the American Indian Sustainable Housing Initiative is a belief that affordability and sustainability do not have to exist independently. Thus, we chose straw-bale construction as a logical fit for several reasons.

• Straw—an agricultural waste product of wheat production—is an environmentally sustainable and readily available option for Southwest and Northern Plains reservations where wheat grows on thousands of acres.

• Straw bale construction is builder-friendly: Indian families, volunteers and community members can quickly become skilled participants in the construction of their own homes.

• Our approach results in a relative cost savings of up to 60% in light of volunteer labor and donated materials as compared with a traditionally contracted starter home.

• Structures built with straw have an extremely high insulation value, which, when coupled with lower energy consumption, results in savings that can then strengthen the tribal economic base.

Learn more about straw bale construction here and check out volunteer opportunities here. Also, if you don’t have time to volunteer but you would like to help these communities, consider donating to help poor families in South Dakota heat their homes this winter. Even if you can only give 10 or 20 dollars, every 100 dollars raised helps a family heat their home for a month.

Green Drinks – Mingle, Network and Connect with Like-Minded People

If you’d like to meet more environmentally conscious people in your area, Green Drinks is a great way to do it. Green Drinks is a monthly informal meeting over drinks, and there are chapters all over the world, including all over the U.S. and Canada, the UK, Germany, Sweden, Japan and much more.  The number of Green Drinks chapters doubled during 2007, from 170 to 304, and has since grown to 350.

Green Drinks is a great opportunity to make new friends and business contacts, get referrals, commiserate on new ideas and get inspired.  Here are a few of the Green Drinks events going on in September in various cities:

London – Tuesday, Sept. 2nd starting at 6:15pm downstairs at The Glasshouse Stores, 55 Brewer St, Soho.  A range of bottled and draught beers, including organic brews, are available as well as a full menu with organic and vegetarian options.

San Francisco – Wednesday, Sept. 3rd 5:30-8pm at Varnish Fine Arts, 77 Natoma St. near 2nd.  For more info or to be added to the email list, contact sfgreendrinks@gmail.com.  Get updates on San Francisco Green Drinks events at the SFGreenDrinks blog.

NYC – Tuesday, Sept. 9th from 6-10pm at Pier 66 – Enjoy organic signature cocktails with complimentary snack foods and sample chocolate bars.  The first 125 people to sign up will receive a free drink ticket. Guest speakers include actor and environmentalist Matthew Modine and geographer and conservationist Robert Rose.  Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door – buy them here.

Vancouver – Wednesday, September 17th 5:45pm at Steamworks Pub, 375 Water St. on the edge of Gastown near Waterfront Station.

Find your local chapter of Green Drinks at GreenDrinks.org.

Donate $100 of Somebody Else’s Money to Green & Humanitarian Causes

It would be great if we could all afford to regularly give money to organizations that promote green causes. Unfortunately, many of us just aren’t able to donate much due to our own budgetary limitations. Luckily for us, sometimes those people who have plenty of cash to spare are willing to pony up for the rest of us in exchange for some non-monetary effort of our own. That’s what the Hinkle Charitable Foundation (HCF) is willing to donate $100 to the Solar Electric Light Fund for every person who reads three primers on energy usage and makes a commitment to change.

From TheHCF.org:

To encourage each reader to become an agent against global warming, we are again issuing a challenge. For each person who reads these three primers and commits to pursue them, we will make a $100 donation in his or her name to the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF). SELF is a truly worthy non-profit organization that simultaneously fights global poverty and climate change. SELF’s primary mission is to install local solar electric power generators in rural third-world areas. In many instances, SELF’s installations are directed to education, health and irrigation facilities and can include joint ventures, where local participants invest in a portion of the project. Providing solar electric power to remote, off-grid people frees them from the unpalatable alternatives of either using kerosene-generated power (which is both bodily and environmental dangerous) or living with no electricity, no lights, no irrigation possibilities, and no connection to the outside world.

As with last year’s challenge, to accept the challenge below, you only need to send us an email. Tell us you will commit yourself (on the honor system) to move forward toward more climate-friendly living and that you’ll try to complete the steps below. The $100 contributions to SELF will be limited to the first 1,000 responders.

The three primers are on compact fluorescent lights, tankless water heaters and reducing idling. It’s one of very few changes you’ll ever get to have that much money donated on your behalf without having to spend a dime of your own, so take it now!

Link [TheHCF.org] via [The Action Blog]

Help No Impact Man Fight Global Warming

Colin Beaven, also known as No Impact Man, aims to make an impact that will help the planet: he’s meeting with his representative to push a plan for an effective global warming mitigation policy and he needs your help. All you have to do is cut and paste the text he’s written into an email and send it to him so he can serve them all up to Representative Nadler. It will only take a minute of your time, and you might just win a copy of Morgan Spurlock’s ‘What Would Jesus Buy’ DVD.

Colin explains the policy he’s urging:

• Introduce, as soon as possible, a non-binding resolution to the House of Representatives asserting that we need a climate change mitigation policy with a goal of no more than 350 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide (read why here). Furthermore, the resolution should say that the United States must collaborate with the international community to achieve an effective successor to the Kyoto Protocol that will achieve the 350 goal or better (depending on how the science progresses).
• Pledge to support the 1sky.org policy platform that also includes creating five million green jobs (through, for example, weatherizing our buildings and manufacturing solar panels and windmills), and placing a moratorium on the building of new coal power plants.
• Pass on to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter addressed jointly to her and Representative Nadler, in his position as Assistant Whip, asking them both to push for the introduction of new and the strengthening of currently pending climate change legislation to reflect the crucial 350 goal. This means, at the very least, aiming for an 80% reduction in climate emissions below 1990 levels by 2050 and a 25% reduction by 2020.

Help him reach his goal of 3,500 emails! Visit No Impact Man for more information, and be sure to pass this post along to your friends to get them to send one, too.

Link [No Impact Man] via [Treehugger]

FBI on the Trail of Dangerous Vegan Potluck Dinner Attendees

Dayum! So apparently we’re not the only ones who think militant vegans can get a little crazazy – the FBI is on their trail, too. Those wily wilesters are looking for a few good moles who aren’t afraid of stepping into those infamous dens of dissent – vegan potluck dinners.

College student Paul Carroll was called into a meeting at a coffee house with the campus police sergeant and a female FBI special agent. Carroll had previously been charged with a misdemeanor for spray-painting the inside of a campus elevator, and knew the police officer from when he turned himself in. What they had to say once he got there wasn’t exactly what he was expecting.

From City Pages:

“She told me that I had the perfect ‘look,’” recalls Carroll. “And that I had the perfect personality—they kept saying I was friendly and personable—for what they were looking for.”

What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”

Carroll would be compensated for his efforts, but only if his involvement yielded an arrest. No exact dollar figure was offered.

“I’ll pass,” said Carroll.

Those vegans. You gotta watch out for them, seriously, what with their non-leather accessories, tofu and almond milk. They are some dangerous mofos who won’t hesitate to cut you if you dare to pledge your support for meat eating in their presence. As we speak, they’re covering their tracks so the FBI doesn’t find their secret vegan activist hideaways complete with seed bombs, trays of dairy-free bakery treats and posters of famous vegans Alicia Silverstone and Woody Harrelson. They are armed with PETA brochures and planning a terrorist infiltration of the Republican National Convention complete with dangerous ‘Go Vegan’ stickers and peacemongering propaganda.

Link [City Pages] via [BoingBoing]
Photo credit: Flickr user Joi